Azure API Management vs Layer7 API Management (formerly CA API Management)

Likelihood to Recommend

APIM is useful for the standard scenarios:

1) Securing your back-end APIs - If you have a legacy back-end web service that has a basic authentication scheme, you can add some additional security by placing APIM in front, and requiring subscription keys. Leverage your existing firewall to ensure only your APIM instance can communicate with your back-end API, and you've basically added a layer of protection.

2) Lift and shift - there are always going to be clients that don't want to update their clients to use a newer API; in some cases you can make a newer API look like an older one by implementing some complex policies in APIM. You can also do the opposite, making older APIs look new, such as making an XML back-end accept both JSON and XML.

3) Centralizing your APIs - if you've acquired another company and want to make their API set look as if it's a part of the larger whole, APIM is an easy way to provide a consistent front-end interface for developers.

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Gordon Lo

Digital Solutions Architect

DynacareHospital & Health Care, 1001-5000 employees

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Well suited for publishing internal services with very high security, protecting against attacks, and managing on-demand load. Also good for transform messages and SQL to Rest services.Not appropriate for business logic implementation.

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Leonardo Villa

Director of Service Delivery

NETNIX S.A.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Azure API Management

Layer7 API Management (formerly CA API Management)

API access control

Rate limits and usage policies

API usage data

API user onboarding

API versioning

Usage billing and payments

API monitoring and logging

Pros

Easy commissioning of APIs.
Great policies to control access.
Easy mock services for testing.

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Verified User

Employee in Corporate

Chemicals Company, 10,001+ employees

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SOAP to Rest / Rest to SOAP web services transformation.
Secure authorization and authetication (JWT, OpenIP Connect, OAuth, SAML and more). WASP Features as injection protection.
Easy rule writing without coding.

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Leonardo Villa

Director of Service Delivery

NETNIX S.A.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

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Cons

Lack of robustness is a bit of an issue. Several other providers offer more options and capabilities, but then, they are lacking in interface ease.
As with anything Azure, pricing is really hard to stay on top of. I always find that you really don’t know what you’re paying for until you get the bill. Having an excellent Azure Administrator can help resolve that.
Integrating with app services outside of Azure can be a challenge, or at least much more challenging than just using Azure App Services.

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Verified User

Manager in Finance and Accounting

Consumer Goods Company, 10,001+ employees

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It would be nice to have an integration with services like Github for managing projects and versions.

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Leonardo Villa

Director of Service Delivery

NETNIX S.A.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Layer7 API Management (formerly CA API Management) 8.0

Based on 1 answer

The Layer7 API Management is a great solution, but, sometimes the documentation is not clear or has lack of examples.

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Leonardo Villa

Director of Service Delivery

NETNIX S.A.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

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Support Rating

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Layer7 API Management (formerly CA API Management) 8.0

Based on 2 answers

The support team is good and the response time is reasonable, but (there is always a but), when support inquiries are made by someone experienced, and the question is not trivial, it is boring and takes a long time to get the case escalated to the next level of support.

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Leonardo Villa

Director of Service Delivery

NETNIX S.A.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Azure APIM vs Amazon API Gateway:

1) Azure APIM was a complete package that included a developer portal.

2) We are very Microsoft centric - so the Microsoft product suite aligned very well with our business needs.

3) It was faster and easier to stand up Azure APIM for testing than it was for the Amazon API Gateway.

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Gordon Lo

Digital Solutions Architect

DynacareHospital & Health Care, 1001-5000 employees

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We evaluated 3 tools and decided on Layer7 API Management because it had the shortest implementation times and fastest learning curve, without losing power of customization and scalability.

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Leonardo Villa

Director of Service Delivery

NETNIX S.A.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

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Return on Investment

We have one-stop access to all services.
We can stop DDoS, Man in the middle attack, etc.

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Verified User

Employee in Corporate

Chemicals Company, 10,001+ employees

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Very fast implementation and is easy to learn & use.

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Leonardo Villa

Director of Service Delivery

NETNIX S.A.Computer Software, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Rating Summary

Azure API Management

Layer7 API Management (formerly CA API Management)

Azure API Management

Layer7 API Management (formerly CA API Management)

Azure API Management

Layer7 API Management (formerly CA API Management)